Today’s post is going to rub some folks in academia the wrong way.  Therefore, I want to preface the piece that follows by saying:

a) I am a huge advocate of a multi-faceted education, encompassing “traditional” directed study (e.g., classroom education), self-study, internships, and experimentation.

b) I loved my college experience – both undergraduate and graduate.  I benefited tremendously and made a lot of valuable connections.

However, it didn’t come easily; I got out of it what I put into it.  To be candid, there are a lot of my peers who took the exact same courses and got the exact same degrees who didn’t walk away having gotten their money’s worth.

But, then again, does anyone really get their money’s worth?

College isn’t cheap nowadays. Check out the following statistics from CollegeBoard.com (as of 2011; this is sure to increase in the years to come):

• Public four-year colleges charge, on average, $7,605 per year in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $11,990. 
• Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $27,293 per year in tuition and fees.
• Public two-year colleges charge, on average, $2,713 per year in tuition and fees.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account the cost of books, travel, food, accommodations, and the $5,000 in on-campus parking tickets you’ll end up paying.  Educations can run upwards of $220,000 - and that's before you consider student loan interest and the opportunity cost of investing that money.

Assume 24-30 credits per year (12-15 per semester), you’re looking at a per credit hour cost of $399.66-$499.58 for public, out-of-state.  It’d be $253.50-$316.88 for public, in-state.  Public two-year colleges would be $90.43-$113.04. Finally, private would be $909.77-$1137.21. Sorry, Mom and Dad; I’ve never in all my years heard a kid say that an hour with one of his professors – even in a one-on-one context – was worth over a grand.

They also charge you to do internships elsewhere.  In other words, you have to pay to get credits accepted – which means that the cost per hour you actually spend with college faculty is, in fact, even higher.

Many folks go to college to figure out what they want to do.  Others go because it is a social experience that is both fun – and helpful in maturing them as individuals.  That’s fine.

However, it is becoming tougher and tougher to consider it an investment, especially since the “success gap” between college graduates and those who don’t attend college is getting smaller and smaller.  Along these lines, if you haven’t read it already, I’d strongly encourage you to read Michael Ellsberg’s New York Times piece, Will Dropouts Save America?

The exercise science field is one in which this success gap is arguably smaller than in any other.  The barrier to entry to the personal training field is incredibly low; independent of schooling and previous experience, one can become certified in a matter of a few hours via an online test, and many gyms will hire people who aren’t even certified or insured.  In fact, as I wrote a few years ago, Josef Brandenburg, a great trainer based in Washington, D.C., actually got his pet pug certified.  The sad truth is that he could probably do a better job than most of the trainers out there who are pulling $100/hour.

Of course, I’m preaching to the choir here.  Most of the folks reading this blog are educated and highly motivated to be the best that they can be.  You seek out the best reading materials, DVDs, seminars, and colleagues from which you can learn.  Personal training means a lot to people who grew up and went to college wanting to eventually help people get healthy, improve quality of life, optimize sports performance, or simply be more confident.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that our profession as a whole has become a “fall-back” career.  It can be what college kids decide to do over summer vacation to make a few bucks, or what extremely well-paid lawyers or accountants take up when they get sick of long hours at desk jobs.

That doesn’t make them bad people; it just means that the minimal regulation in our industry has rendered a college education in this field a trivial competitive advantage in the workplace.

Additionally, this doesn't mean that college professors aren't qualified or doing their jobs sufficiently. It just means that the curricula that typifies an exercise science degree simply isn't sufficient to provide a competitive advantage over non-college-educated candidates in the workforce. There are exceptions, no doubt,in the form of outstanding professors who go above and beyond the call of duty to help student, but I can't honestly say that I've ever heard of a college kid coming out of any undergraduate exercise science program boasting of a competitive advantage that was uniquely afforded to him/her because of the education just completed. The closest thing might be a program with a strong alumni network that provides easier access to job opportunities.

Of course, the cream will rise to the top in any field – and that’s certainly true of exercise science as well.  The industry leaders are, for the most part, people with college educations in exercise science (or closely related fields) – but the question one must ask is, “would these people have been successful in our field even without the courses they took in their undergraduate studies?”

Don’t you think Mike Robertson’s drive for self study would have sustained him in a successful career in this field even without a degree?

Don’t you think Todd Durkin’s energy, charisma, and passion for helping people would have shone through even if he hadn’t gotten a degree?

Moreover, I can list dozens of bright minds making outstanding headway in this field with “non-exercise-science” college degrees.  John Romaniello (Psychobiology/ English), Joe Dowdell (Sociology/Economics), and Ben Bruno (Sociology) are all successful, forward-thinking trainers who come to mind instantly, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Some of my best interns have come from undergraduate majors like English Literature, Acting, and Biology.  We’ve had others who didn’t even have college degrees and absolutely dominated in their roles at Cressey Performance.

Guys like Nate Green, Adam Bornstein, Sean Hyson, Lou Schuler, and Adam Campbell don’t have college degrees in exercise science (although Campbell did get a graduate degree in Exercise Physiology following his undergraduate in English).  However, from their prolific writing careers and by surrounding themselves with the best trainers on the planet, they’ve become incredibly qualified trainers themselves – even if they don’t have to train anybody as part of their jobs.

With all these considerations in mind, the way I see it, you’ve got three options to distinguish yourself in the field of exercise science – and I'll share them in part 2 of this article.  If you’re a high school or college student contemplating a career in exercise science, this will be must-read material.

In the meantime, you may be interested in checking out Elite Training Mentorship, our affordable online education program for fitness professionals.

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Last Saturday night, the power went out at our house thanks to a rare October snowstorm in New England. Expecting it to come back on pretty quickly, I went to bed Saturday night assuming I’d wake up to a normal Sunday morning.

Instead, I woke up and it was 49 degrees in my house. And, that wound up being par for the course through Tuesday at about 4pm. No hot showers, no refrigeration, no coffee in the morning: it makes you realize how much you take some things for granted.

It’s not all that different than what you’ll hear from injured and sick athletes. We always just believe that we’re going to be healthy – and it’s that assumption that leads us to put too much weight on the bar and lift with poor technique, have the extra beer, go to bed an hour later, or make any of a number of other small, but crucial decisions that interfere with our short- and long-term health, and the continuity in our workout "routines."

I wish I’d foam rolled even when I wasn’t in pain.

I wish I’d done that dynamic flexibility warm-up even when I just wanted to get in and lift.

I wish I’d eaten my vegetables even though I was just trying to shovel in as much calories as I could in my quest to get strong and gain muscle.

These are all things I've heard from injured people. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Some of these decisions are made out of negligence, but often, they’re made simply because folks don’t know about the right choices. I mean, do you think this guy would really continue doing this if he thought it was good for his body?

Nobody is immune to ignorance; we’ve all “been there, done that.”

Almost a decade ago, I had no idea how much soft tissue work, high volumes of horizontal pulling, and thoracic spine mobility drills could do to help my shoulder. It’s why I stumbled through fails attempts at physical therapy with that shoulder back in 2000-2003, only to accidentally discover how to fix it with my own training in time to cancel my shoulder surgery.

Back in that same time period, nobody ever told me how eating more vegetables would help take down the acidity of my diet, or that Vitamin D status impacted tissue quality and a host of other biological functions. I never knew most fish oil products you could buy are woefully underdosed and of poor quality. Now, I crush Vitamin D, fish oil, and Athletic Greens on top of a healthy diet that’s as much about nutrient quality as it is about caloric content and timing.

In short, I didn’t know everything then, and while I know a lot more now, I still don’t claim to have all the answers. Nobody has all of them. So what do you do to avoid taking important things for granted?

Get around people who have “been there, done that.” Ask questions. Follow workout routines they’ve followed, and consult resources they’ve consulted. I touched on this in my webinars last week.

I also discussed this topic in a blog about strength and conditioning program design a while back. The best way to avoid making mistakes and taking things for granted is to be open-minded and learn from other people.

With that in mind, let’s use this post as a starting point. What mistakes have you made when it comes to taking things for granted? And, what lessons have you learned? Post your comments below.

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Show and Go was released last September - just prior to us getting a new puppy, Tank, who is now the official facility mascot of Cressey Performance (he even has a Twitter account).

He weighed in at a scrawny 5.6 pounds when we got him, but we put him to work right away using the principles of Show and Go.  Here he is learning how to foam roll with one of our pro guys in his first week at Cressey Performance.

He was great about getting proper rest between workouts:

And making sure that he was fully hydrated:

The end result?  He's tipping the scales at a lean, mean 31 pounds now - with some outstanding mobility.

Anyone else find it very interesting that Tank's weight has increased six-fold in the time that he's been around the Show and Go program - even without doing it?  This program works even by simple association!

Get it now!

Show and Go was a game-changer for Paul Brazelton, too; check out his feedback from back in May:

When it comes to intermediate to advanced lifters and their weight training programs, they don't just want to get strong; they want to get strong fast.

With that in mind, I'm devoting today's post to some of my favorite strategies to increase strength quickly.  I talk a lot about longer-term strength and conditioning strategies, but figured it'd be a good idea to highlight some "quick fixes" today.

1. Warm-up - This seems like a no-brainer, but you'd be amazed at how many people jump right into their weight training program of the day without even getting their body temperature up. It's well documented that performance improves as core body temperature rises.  However, as this study demonstrated, even a lowered skin temperature can decrease force output - independent of core body temperature.  So, it may be advantageous to start your day's strength training program in long sleeves and remove layers as you go.  I prefer to see folks sweating by the time the warm-up ends; set aside at least ten minutes for it so that you can get some foam rolling and mobility drills in.

This is why every training session in Show and Go begins with foam rolling and a dynamic warm-up.

2. Hydrate - You'd be amazed at how many people - both athletes and non-athletes - are chronically dehydrated.  Research at my alma mater, The University of Connecticut, demonstrated that dehydration negatively impacted performance - especially on subsequent sets.  In other words, dehydrated lifters don't bounce back as quickly between sets.  As an interesting aside, everyone on this study was either a classmate or professor of mine; cool (no pun intended) stuff!

Regardless, drink as much as you think you need to drink - and then drink some more.

3. Have Some Caffeine - I don't love the idea of guys crushing energy drinks like the world is about to end and they don't need their adrenal glands anymore, but a little boost here and there can do the trick for a lot of lifters.  On the whole, research supports the idea that caffeine improves performance in most scenarios with minimal risk, provided the dose isn't excessive and the individual isn't prone to certain issues (migraines being the one that comes to mind the quickest).

Think of it as a "here and there" boost, but don't assume that you need to crush it to be successful.  Many people get enough of it in from drinking coffee in the morning that they're desensitized, anyway.  I'd prefer folks drink coffee, anyway, as it's loaded with antioxidants and actually confers more health benefits than folks realize.

4. Firm up your Grip - It drives me bonkers when I see a lifter get all fired up to take a big lift, and then grab the bar with a limp hand. There are times to be gentle - handling puppies, performing surgery, and knitting scarves, for instance - but lifting heavy stuff is not one of those times. A firm grip do so much more than connect you to the bar; it turns on more proximal muscles and gets the nervous system going, as we have loads of mechanoceptors in our hands (disproportionately more than other areas on the body). As an example, physical therapist Gray Cook often cites a phenomenon called "irradiation," where the brain signals the rotator cuff to fire as protection to the shoulder when it's faced with a significant load in the hand, as with a deadlift. Just grabbing onto something get more muscles involved in the process.

5. Tinker with Technique -  It goes without saying that just a few subtle strength exercise technique adjustments can make a big difference quickly.  Using the deadlift as an example, the few I know that can make a dramatic difference quickly are:

a) bringing the hands in closer (shortens the distance the bar must travel)
b) taking off the shoes, or getting into a pair of minimalist training shoes (also shortens the distance the bar must travel, and puts the weight on the heels, where you want it)
c) spending less time in the bottom position before one pulls (notice in the video below that I get my thoughts together, then dip, grip, and rip; it allows me to get a bit more out of the stretch-shortening cycle at the bottom):

These are just a few coaching cues for a single strength exercise, but there are countless more unique to each individual to help people increase strength quickly.

6. Change the Music - I don't need to cite a study to prove to you that lifting with good music will help your cause, but I will anyway: Music (or the expectation of music) makes cyclist work harder.  Cycling isn't lifting heavy stuff, but it goes without saying that my experience has been that folks get strong faster when they've got music playing and lots of energy in the gym.

7. Utilize Post-Activation Potentiation - This is a fancy way of saying that if you lift (or even just hold) a heavier weight, when you subsequently (shortly thereafter) perform a comparable exercise with a lighter weight, it will feel easier.  In the research, it works in some scenarios, but not in others (seems to be more effective in the lower body than the upper body).  Chad Waterbury covered this concept in some detail HERE, if you're interested in reading more.

These are just seven strategies you can employ in your weight training programs to increase strength transiently, and there are surely many more.  By all means, share your top short-term "get strong fast" strategies in the comments section.

Looking for a weight training program where you can best put these strategies in action?  Check out The High Performance Handbook.

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